{"id":5636,"date":"2015-02-21T22:03:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T05:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2015-02-21T22:03:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T05:03:44","slug":"prairie-lights-refining-the-montana-bucket-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/02\/prairie-lights-refining-the-montana-bucket-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Lights: Refining the Montana bucket list"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hank\"<\/a>

John Warner<\/p>

You may have seen this photo of Hank Armstrong at the Dry Falls before, but I can’t get tired of it, no more than I could grow tired of the falls themselves. They’re No. 1 on my Montana bucket list.<\/p><\/div>\n

Excuse me for being late on this, but I just discovered (on Facebook, the unsleeping recycler of pop culture) that the Great Falls Tribune published a Big Sky bucket list<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n

The Tribune presented \u201c100 activities every Montanan should have on a bucket list of things to do in a lifetime.\u201d I found it impossible not to read the article from start to finish, and impossible not to keep a running tally of how many of the activities I had already done.<\/p>\n

By my count, I bagged 33. I have no idea whether that\u2019s above or below average for a person who has spent 37 years in Montana.<\/p>\n

\"Ed\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick<\/p><\/div>\n

I do know that some of the items have never been on my bucket list and will remain unbagged, including No. 76: \u201cEat Rocky Mountain oysters. At least one bite.\u201d No. Same goes with the brains and eggs at the Oxford Saloon and Caf\u00e9 in Missoula. No amount of alcohol or taunting by friends ever induced me to sample the brains.<\/p>\n

I have no objection to chicken-fried steak\u2014which makes an appearance in No. 52: \u201cChow down on chicken-fried steak and pie at the historic Crazy Mountain Inn in Martinsdale\u201d\u2014but I\u2019m not a big fan, either. So better yet, get anything on the menu, then spend the night at the inn and play poker with a couple of friends in the front parlor till way after midnight. Damn, that was fun.<\/p>\n

There is at least one item on the list I checked off but could have done without, No. 39: \u201cWatch the Montana Legislature in session.\u201d If that\u2019s going to be on your list, you might as well take in a session of your local city council or board of adjustment. How about: \u201cNap in governmental meeting room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two items on the list could have been combined in one\u2014No. 45: \u201cFind a fossil\u201d and No. 61: \u201cListen to an old-timer speak of Montana as it was long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

One item is oddly incongruous. It\u2019s not \u201cSee a grizzly bear\u201d or \u201cWitness a black bear in the wild,\u201d but rather, \u201cKnow how to react in a bear encounter.\u201d Wait, you\u2019re putting training lessons on your bucket list? How about \u201cLearn CPR,\u201d \u201cFigure out how to use an automatic defibrillator\u201d and \u201cPractice delivering a baby in a blizzard.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a few items on the list that I would fine-tune. No. 38 on the Tribune tally suggests exploring Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks. Better yet, as near as you can, swim right there at the confluence of the Madison, Gallatin and Jefferson rivers. It\u2019s an amazing feeling, and the water is generally clean and cold.<\/p>\n

No. 46 suggests you memorize the John Steinbeck quote<\/a> that begins, \u201cI\u2019m in love with Montana.\u201d That one\u2019s OK, but it\u2019s a bit wordy. I much prefer: \u201cMontana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.\u201d It also makes fun of Texans, which is a bonus.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>One glaring omission, which I can only account for by assuming that the Tribune wanted to preserve its reputation as a family-friendly newspaper, was any mention of drinking establishments, except as the location for some other activity, like watching the mermaids at the Sip \u2018N\u2019 Dip Lounge, or eating a hamburger at the Two Dot Bar.<\/p>\n

No mention of the Montana Bar in Miles City, the M&M in Butte, the Club Moderne in Anaconda, the Dirty Shame Saloon in Yaak, the Stoneville Saloon in Alzada, the Jimtown Bar near Lame Deer, Pisser\u2019s Palace in Walkerville, the New Atlas Bar in Columbus, the Hell Creek Bar in Jordan \u2026 and about 100 other can\u2019t-miss joints.<\/p>\n

On a related note, the Tribune bucket list includes visiting the museums on the state\u2019s Dinosaur Trail and stopping in at every historical marker in the state, which sounds more like a career than a bucket-list goal. In the alternative, I would recommend visiting every brewery in Montana. That seems like a lot more fun.<\/p>\n

Now, then, what about what\u2019s not on the list? We\u2019ve all got our favorites, I\u2019m sure, and I don\u2019t expect my additions to complete anyone\u2019s list, either. Feel free to add your own, but here are mine, all of which I have written about in the past 13 months:<\/p>\n

There was no mention of Plenty Coups State Park<\/a>. There\u2019s not much there, in terms of Disney-like distractions, but stay an hour or two and tell me if you don\u2019t feel the presence of the great Crow chief.<\/p>\n

Up next, the Brockway Dairy Day Rodeo<\/a>, held each year on the third weekend in July. It is, as one experienced Brockwayian put it, \u201ckinda like the rodeos were 50 or 60 years ago.\u201d And there are plenty of fossils there who can tell you how the rodeo was 75 or 80 years ago.<\/p>\n

The Tribune mentions the Red Ants Pants Festival in White Sulphur Springs. I feel compelled to add Magic City Blues<\/a>, Billings’ giant street (and park) party, and the Montana Folk Festival<\/a> in Butte, hands-down the coolest event in the history of this state.<\/p>\n

And now, please, a drum roll. I am astounded that the Tribune\u2019s list did not include a visit to the Dry Falls of the Shonkin Sag<\/a>, barely 40 miles from Great Falls.<\/p>\n

The extinct waterfall, which dwarfed Niagara when an Ice Age ancestor of the Missouri River flowed gigantically, is, I humbly declare, the most impressive and spectacular sight in all of Montana. That it is so little known and so rarely visited only increases its magnificence.<\/p>\n

It should be No. 1 on every Montanan\u2019s bucket list, believe me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excuse me for being late on this, but I just discovered (on Facebook, the unsleeping recycler of pop culture) that the Great Falls Tribune published a Big Sky bucket list in December. The Tribune presented \u201c100 activities every Montanan should have on a bucket list of things to do in a lifetime.\u201d I found it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2127,2124,602,1085,2126,81,2125,25],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prairie-lights","tag-brockway-dairy-day-rodeo","tag-crazy-mountain-inn","tag-great-falls-tribune","tag-magic-city-blues","tag-missouri-headwaters-state-park","tag-montana-folk-festival","tag-oxford-saloon","tag-shonkin-sag","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}